Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Dressed in school uniform, consisting of a red tie, a white button down, a blue blazer, and a black skirt. Illi walks up to her third period, class room 304. She has a determined look on her face. ‘I won’t get expelled from this school,’ she promises herself. She stares at the room number in front of her face, white lettering surrounded by a black rectangle.
She smoothes out her skirt, and walks in. The entire class stops what they’re doing to look at the new girl. One student catches her eye, he looks her up and down, taking her in. Staring, quite rudely, at her. He has a stupid hair cut, Illi thinks. It’s a combed down black mohawk of sorts. The sides of his hair are bleached blond.
“Class,” the teacher starts, “this is our new student Ger-”
“Illi,” she cuts the teacher off, “Illi McMillin.”
Illi knew what was going to happen, it always does. The teacher says her deadname, then everyone finds out she’s trans and gets bullied relentlessly. Illi tries to stop that whenever she can.
“...Okay. G- uh- Illi,” she says distastefully. “You can sit over there, next to Warren.” Warren, Illi realizes, is the boy who was eyeing her earlier. He gives her a half hearted wave.
“Hm,” Illi nods and walks over to the empty desk, “Hi.” She says, then scrunched her nose. Warren reeks of weed.
“Hey.” His voice is funny, she thinks, raspy from smoking, she assumes. A little too high for a guy as well.
The teacher starts the lesson, rambling on about math. Useless shit.
“Ugh. You’re going to give me a headache.” Illi pulls out her body spray and sprays it all over him.”
“Hey!” He hisses, “what the fuck are you doing?”
“Getting rid of that weed smell.”
“I’d rather smell like weed than the girls section of bath and body works!” He says, still whisper-yelling.
Illi stops spraying when she decides it’s enough. She then pulls out her iPod and puts her earbuds in. Warren leans in, “not paying attention either, huh?” Illi scoffs and pulls out an earbud.
“Nope. Math is stupid.”
“Agreed.” He nods approvingly, a smile creeping onto his lips
“Mhm.” Illi put her earbuds back in.
Warren is clearly not pleased with that, he wants to keep talking to this new girl. She has shoulder length messy black hair, thin lips, and small teeth. She is tall for a girl, with broad shoulders and a boxy build. Her eyelids are glittery and her eye lashes are coated in clumpy mascara. Warren watches her tap out to the song she's listening to, wondering what it is. He eventually zones out until class is over. The bell rings, jolting him out of his trance.
“Hey, Illi right?” He asks as they stand up from their desks.
“Yep.” She replies.
“Wanna grab lunch together?” He has a goofy half smile on his face, anticipating her answer. Illi is amused at his attempt to be friends, so she accepts his offer.
“Sure.”
“Awesome!! See you in a few.” He winks and runs off to his next class. Illi rolls her eyes and heads to history
. . .
Illi finds herself standing awkwardly in the doors of the cafeteria, not knowing where Warren is.
“Lilly!” She feels a hand slap on her shoulder and turns to see it’s Warren.
“Illi.” she corrects.
“Illi…” he repeats, memorizing it. “Weird name. Anyway, still wanna eat together?”
“Yep.” Illi admits to herself that she still thinks Warren is odd as hell, but hey, she hasn’t made any other friends yet.
“Hell yeah. Come on.” he slings his bag over one shoulder and jogs out of the room.
“Hey- wait!” Illi was not expecting him to start running. She jogs after him, dogging students, teachers, and lockers. They finally stop at the bleachers on the football field. There is a tall guy waiting there, he has long, curly brown hair.
“Hey man!” Warren walks up to the guy and dabs him up, “Ray, this is Illi,” He points to her. She waves and half-smiles.
“Illi, this is Ray.” Illi walks closer to Ray and he shakes her hand. His hand is big and rough, with calluses on his finger tips.
“Play guitar?” Illi asks, letting go of his hand.
“Uh, yeah! How’d you know?” He lifted a hand up, scratching the back of his head.
“Just a guess.” she responds, and the matter drops. Warren sits down against a pole for the bleachers and pulls out a Red Bull from his bag. Illi sits down on the ground near Warren. She unzips her bag, rummaging her hand in it until she finds the newest Fangoria the Exorcist: The Beginning issue, and her deformed PB&J. She takes the jelly- covered sandwich out of the plastic bag and takes a bite. Just when she starts chewing, mouth full, Warren pipes up with a question.
“Woah, you like Fangoria too?? Awesome, dude!” Illi flinches when Warren says ‘dude’ but she convinces herself that he did not mean it like that. Illi chews quickly and chokes down her sandwich so she can answer the question.
“Y-yeah! I love horror.”
“We have to have a hang out soon, you seem pretty badass.” Ray says smiling, like he would actually enjoy her company.
“That sounds pretty cool, but would it be okay if I bring my little brother? His name’s Mikey and also goes here, he’s a freshman but he’s pretty cool! He just has a hard time making friends.” Illi notices a quick glance between Warren and Ray but then Ray looks back at her, “Sure dude, the more the merrier." Again with them saying dude!! Illi calms down, ‘it’s just a term’ she says to herself. Then, she hears her name called from a distance.
“Illi! Hey! Been looking for you.” she turns and squints, a tall lanky figure walking towards her, being back-lit by the bright sun.
“Hi Mikey.” she replies. Mikey walks up to the group and waves to everyone. His Smashing Pumpkins T-shirt (which is a million times too small) rides up, showing his skinny black belt ‘holding up’ his skin tight- ball-crushing skinny jeans. Illi quickly turns back to see the others' reactions to her awkward as hell brother. Warren waves back and introduces himself. She then looks at Ray and- oh fuck. Is he blushing?? No way in hell is he blushing at Mikey. Illi prays she just didn’t notice it before and Ray is sunburnt. Mikey sits down next to Illi and pushes up his rectangle glasses.
“I’m Ray!” he extends his hand for Mikey to shake. Illi can practically feel the immediate tension between those two.
“Um, yeah, as you probably realized, this is my little brother I was just talking about.” Illi says.
“You were just talking about me??” Mikey asks, bewildered. Ray sees this as an opportunity to seem cool to Mikey.
“”Y-yeah, she was! I invited you guys to my house to watch horror movies.”
“Sick!” Mikey says. Clearly ecstatic that he is already going to hang out with Ray. Mikey falls so easily, poor guy. The group sits in awkward silence for a few more minutes before the bell rings. Illi quickly shoves down the rest of lunch and stuffs everything back into her bag. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Mikey and Ray darting off together. Mikey may not be the best with making friends, but damn, he's good with finding hook-ups. Warren shoots up, and now stands directly in front of Illi. Illi zips up her bag and looks up to see Warren's hand extended, basically in her face. She hesitantly grabs it and lets him help her up.
“Thanks.” she mutters, pretending not to notice the little shock that went up her arm.
“What class you got next?” he asks, pacing his stride with hers.
“Biology.” She responds. Not sure if she wants to share another class with Warren or not.
“No way, me too dude. We can walk together.” Illi really doesn’t want to have a crush on someone on the first day of school, but dammit, she warmed up to Warren way too quickly. She hadn’t realized that Warren had already started walking. As she starts to catch up to him, Warren runs back and grabs her hand, dragging her forward. She really hopes she isn’t blushing.